Nisha Continental Hotel Kottayam

... We left a donation to help in some way towards making these people’s lives more comfortable in their final hour of need.


By now we were all totally emotionally & physically drained from what we had seen, met & heard. Issy was very keen to go & visit a local orphanage and shelter, where they house women & children who are escaping from abusive, alcoholic homes. There were fifty women & children in total housed by this charity which ...

... we cruised along the backwaters. In the evening we berthed adjacent to rice fields with surrounding banana and coconut plants. Served a delicious meal we chatted the evening away. I was planning to sleep on deck under the stars but so did everyone else, so I ended taking the room to myself. After breaky we craised back to dock. This will likely be the highlight of this section.

... only did I get to have three Salwar Kameezes made for me, I also got to learn to wear the more traditional Sari! It was a riot, the mother and her daughter who dressed me up had a lot of fun with makeup and jewelry, and they definitely got a few good laughs at my expense (I was afraid to walk in the Sari so I would shuffle slowly from place to place).

... was the expressiveness of his eyebrows! They take around 1.5 hours to even apply the makeup and appreantly train to do so for around 3 years. The other training - dance, hand mudras and music takes a further 7 years as well so it's pretty much a committed career choice! The play was great, all the demons, brahmins etc that you would expect of Indian theatre and it was very funny. The demon was played by a Richard Griffiths look alike who had me in stitches. Have ...

... in the ashram is lovely, but very hippydippy and always asking you if you're ok...asking you to help with something...and being very happy and smily...which shouldn't really be a problem I suppose...) we ran away the next day. But if such a cult of an individual manages to achieve great things then we didn't feel we could condemn it just because it's the scariest thing we'd come across since the spider in Sihanoukville. For more information on Amritapuri, go to: http://www.amritapuri.org/

... most idyllic destination can be completely different to what may impress a foreigner. Despite the majority of the hype being lavished on the backwaters, the real highlight for us was a remote strip of coastline dubbed as "The Secret Beach" by our home stay hosts. The beach doesn't really have a name at the moment, the local fisherman didn't seem too concerned with attaching a label to a map. However, this is the 21st century, and with it comes the ...

... many species come gathering during winter.I realize that perfect time to catch sight of animals in a such places happens around 5 am before any Human disturbance occurs.Anyway,there's life even later,and again it's a privilege to walk in such majestic half jungle,preserved area. I come back to town and cross chaotic jam traffic to the station to catch a train to Ernakulam my next delight.

... now so I find that I don't notice a lot of weird things around me as much. Having Kristen here, I'm tending to look at a lot of our surroundings with fresh eyes and viewing things more as she would see them. Anyway, we will be heading north tomorrow to the alluring backwaters of Kerala then on to Delhi and Rajastan in the north. Katie Said: After driving all around Sri Lanka for a week and a half, I had declared myself "India ready." After all, I was ...

... thirty metre central tower, with ornate carvings and glimpses of the 365 pillars can be enjoyed from the outside. Opposite the large ritual bathing tank of the Sri Padhmanabhaswamy temple lies the 200 year old Puthe Maliga museum. Originally a palace, it took five thousand workers four years to complete. Its Keralan architecture, with carved wooden ceilings, is an interesting visit. Guides escort small groups through the many rooms, which form only a fraction of the total size. We ...

... a microphone and PA system for group games. First, volunteers went up to the mic to sing Hindi songs and other tunes in their regional languages. After much haranguing, they got Nate and me to go up for a rendition of America, the Beautiful. Next, the group divided in two for a game called anthaakshari, where one team sang a Hindi film song, and the other team had to follow with another Hindi film song starting with the last letter of the last word of the opponent's song. Nate and I ...